Dancing Around the Question
by blinkblink
Summary: The older knights escort Himeno to a St. Valentine's day ball. Mawata's simple questions lead to a larger one: are they a family?


Disclaimer: I don't own Pretear, nor the characters. Please don't sue me!  
  
ANs: I wanted to have this out for Valentine's day, but ff.net was having a read-only day which I wasn't aware of, so it got postponed to the day after... Um, as usual, you can find a .htm file of this with italics replacing _underscores_ at my fanfiction archive Rakuen (). Thanks for reading!  
  
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"You don't have to come! I'm fine, I don't _need_ bodyguards!" Himeno stamped her foot down on the soft grass by the large wind chimes that hung in one of the many Awayuki gardens.   
  
"Whether you need a bodyguard or not isn't the question. We're the leafe knights, you are our Pretear. It's our duty to protect you. This ... dance that you and your family is going to has lax security, and your family is politically important enough to be a target of someone!" Around the chimes sat or stood the seven leafe knights, and their Pretear, Awayuki Himeno. The Knight of Wind, Hayate, stood right up against her, so that they could shout into one another's faces without having to worry about any of the volume being lost in transit over unnecessary air space.  
  
"Hayate, I am alone at school everyday, I walk there and back alone, I go out alone and I come back fine! Nothing has ever happened to me, or anyone in my family!" Himeno stood up on her tip toes, hands balled into fists and arms extended as far towards the ground as they would go until they shook from their own tautness.  
  
"What makes you think you were alone then?" Hayate tipped his hand.  
  
"WHAAAAAAAAT?" Himeno's screech echoed over the entire property, startling birds out of trees. Sasame winced.   
  
"Whether you approve of it or not, we're still going. Some of us just decided you should be told..." Without looking around, Hayate still managed to give the impression that this was the doing of Sasame and Kei (who were standing together leaning against the chime's shelter). "So deal with it, tulip-atama. The four of us will meet you there at seven."   
  
At this point, the three younger knights broke in with mixed questions and insults. Mannen's voice took precedence. "Hey, what about us? We want to go and protect Himeno too!" A two-person chorus of 'aa!'s was heard.  
  
Goh strode forwards and pushed Mannen's head down, mussing up his hair. "C'mon, you guys wouldn't enjoy it. It'll be all adults, except for Himeno and her sisters. And Takako, maybe. But it'll just be a bunch of dancin' and fancy food and junk. I won't even enjoy it." Goh looked up at Hayate suspiciously. Sasame, from behind, answered the question before it was even asked.  
  
"Yes, Goh, you _are_ coming. We need at least four. And Takako is coming, as she was invited by Himeno."   
  
"But Hayateeeeeeeeeee, it's just a Valentine's day party!" Even as she was pleading, Himeno was loosing heart. It was abundantly clear that she was not going to win this argument. She spun around, so that her back was to Hayate, and the other knights.  
  
"Fine. But, you _will_ behave, won't you?" She looked over her shoulder up at Hayate. He stared back at her, deadpan.   
  
"That's a promise, Hayate!" She winked, and ran off towards the house.   
  
The four older knights stared at each other, ignoring the three younger ones.   
  
"Are you _sure_ this is necessary?" Goh made a face that demonstrated what he thought of fancy-dress parties.   
  
"YES!" The other three knights' answer nearly knocked him over.  
  
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The party that the knights intended to attend was not, as Hayate seemed to think, low on security. Being a very exclusive party aimed at the upper-class acquaintances of the Awayuki family it was being carefully planned, catered _and_ guarded, both to keep out uninvited townsfolk and possible threats to the safety of the guests.   
  
The event was, as Himeno had said, a party with the theme of St. Valentine's day, but perhaps a formal ball would have been a better word. Being an imported foreign holiday, ball gowns and tuxedos were the expected dress. Which meant that Himeno and Mawata were doomed to spend the day inside being dressed up by their mother and Mayune. Himeno vaguely wondered why she had to be subjected to this when her father would doubtless be appearing in an old suit and his usual fly-away hair-style. She had vaguely thought about going as Pretear with one of the knights, at least then she would have company, but the dresses they provided were a little ...short for formal wear. And a little outlandish, as well. And none of the knights, she thought, would really appreciate being used as a formal suit. So she abandoned herself to her step-mother's incredibly complex dresses and make-up styles. Hayate was going to laugh himself sick when he saw her, Himeno was sure about that.  
  
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The younger knights, feeling snubbed, were staying in Leafeania, and refused to speak to the older knights (on Mannen's urging). The older knights, having been informed by Sasame, who had been informed by Takako, that this would be fancy dress, and yes, they would be expected to wear something other than their uniforms or their casual wear. Sasame was taken care of, as a radio persona he had been asked to formal parties before and owned the requisite attire. Goh had half of his attire from his waiting uniform, and proposed to borrow a black jacket from the head waiter. Which left Hayate and Kei to wander the streets in search of tuxedos.  
  
"Why are we expected to dress in something so restricting?" Hayate did not enjoy the idea of wearing a tuxedo. He and Kei were perusing the wares at various downtown formal wear stores.  
  
"Because they are considered to be the height of fashion. Why do they all have to be black?" Kei pushed a rack of tuxedos to the side, glaring at their dark colouring.  
  
"That's the only thing about them that I like." Hayate held a jacket up against himself and looked down. "I don't see what difference it makes. They all look the same to me."   
  
The sound of heels clicking on the wooden floor of the store called the attention of the two knights to the approaching sales clerk. Hayate tried to inconspicuously look for a place to hide, but it was too late, they had been spotted.   
  
"Can I help you, sirs?" A peppy, cliché female salesclerk. Hayate had considerably more than half a mind to reply resoundingly in the negative, but Kei beat him to speaking.  
  
"Actually, my friend and I are looking for dress suits. For tonight. And I believe he is having some trouble deciding on a style to fit him." Kei raised an eyebrow and smiled rather evilly at Hayate, whose eyes promised revenge later.   
  
"Well, sir, if you would walk this way please ..." Hayate was lead off, not unlike a lamb to the slaughter. Kei's smile widened, and he would have turned back to the racks, if a hand on his shoulder hadn't shocked him into turning around. A shorter, stockier salesclerk was smiling up at him (and Kei had never considered himself that tall...).  
  
"Can I help _you_, sir?" Kei never got a chance to object, before he was dragged away. And he never saw Hayate's satisfied smile.  
  
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At seven, the doors to the Awayuki's dance hall opened, to reveal a huge space inside resplendent with velvet red banners and tapestries. Millions of tiny red and white lights had replaced the usually all-white lights of the grand chandeliers that hung from the roof. Soft music came from a small group set up in one corner of the hall, a singer, a piano, drums, a saxophone and a trumpet. Awayuki Natsue and her two daughters stood inside, welcoming guests, while Awayuki Kaoru wandered about the ballroom, checking the statues he was exhibiting on pillars. Himeno was nowhere to be found, but expected to turn up presently. Outside the door, four men stood in the shadows, staring somewhat suspiciously at those flowing into the ballroom.   
  
Sasame wore a white single-breasted tuxedo with a silver sequined shirt under it. He wore, as he always did when not in uniform, his frameless glasses. Goh had borrowed a jacket as he had said he would, and so looked a little strange in a slightly too small long-tailed coat and his black pants and white pleated shirt. On Sasame's insistence he had slicked his hair with considerable amount of jell so that it was all a dark colour and did not stick up oddly. Kei, like Sasame, wore a white suit but under it he wore a frilled shirt, and an exotic yellow flower stuck in his button hole (the flower did not look like it originated on earth...). Hayate had been shoved into a dark grey silk shirt and clean-cut black suit with sharp collar and lapels. All the knights, excepting Goh, wore their hair in their usual style. Hayate had been inside already to see if Himeno was there, and when he had found that she was not, they had all decided to clump inconspicuously around the door. Whether or not they were actually inconspicuous was a matter for debate...   
  
Himeno, who had been out wandering the garden waiting for the majority of people to arrive so that she would not have to greet them, found that it was now seven thirty, and that she had better get back before her step-mother decided to court marshal her for dereliction of social duty.  
  
Hayate, bored with watching the inflowing crowd, stared off into the dark gardens of the Awayuki property. And so it was that he was the first to spot Himeno walking in from her sojourn. He might have told the others of her coming, if he had been able to get words out passed the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. Snow White Pretear had used magic to look that beautiful, but Himeno had none of that. No conventional magic, in any case.   
  
Her dress was a light pink colour, even in the darkness of the evening. The soft silk fell out from the waist where it was gathered down to dance about her ankles. The bodice was tight, and came up into a high tight collar. The sleeves stretched down to her wrists, where they were overlapped by white gloves. Around her neck hung a single silver pendant, shaped as an open wild rose, that shone even in the dim outside. Hayate cleared his throat, and looked away. The others looked to see what had caught his attention, and stared as well.   
  
Himeno, having spotted them, ran up the stairs, her white ankle-high boots clicking on the stone steps that led up to the outside entrance of the ballroom. The three knights, that is to say, all but Hayate, bowed formally to Himeno, who blinked and then ducked into an awkward bow of her own. Hayate turned around to face her.  
  
"Nice dress." Flat tone, no emotion.  
  
Himeno smiled, and then took a closer look at the four knights. In tuxedos. She blinked again, and put a hand over her mouth to try to hide her laughter. Sasame and Kei rolled their eyes and walked inside, followed after a second by Goh. Himeno cleared her throat, stood up on tiptoes, and offered her arm to Hayate. He raised an eyebrow slightly in amusement. She sighed and made to walk in, but he grabbed her arm and put his around it and escorted her towards the door. He was startled by a harsh exclamation, and then,  
  
"I just remembered, I forgot something!" She made to break away, but he didn't let her.  
  
"You can get it tomorrow, let's go already!" She sighed, slightly depressed, and followed his lead in.  
  
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The inside of the ballroom was both dark and noisy (due more to every person in the room speaking to every other one, rather than the volume of the music), and due to this both Kei and Sasame were standing in a corner, looking rather miserable. Takako's arrival in a simple long green dress cleared the creases off of Sasame's forehead though, and he disappeared into the crowd with her on his arm. Kei remained in his corner, and watched as Goh waltzed by (not literally) with two girls wearing what appeared to be very expensive, and very shimmery, gowns leaning against him. That was an odd sight. But the girls here weren't exactly your normal school girls. It was, Kei supposed, a given that they would be a little strange in some areas. He looked about absentmindedly to see who the other wallflowers happened to be, and recognized a familiar face. Mawata-chan, Himeno's younger sister. She wore a green dress that, like Himeno's, billowed out from her waist, but it was considerably heavier than Himeno's, it might have been velvet. Her only attempt at Valentine's day colours (a half-hearted one at that) were her white earrings and hair tie. Kei strode over to stand next to her. She looked up at him, startled, and ready to back away before she recognized him.  
  
"You're one of Himeno-san's friends, aren't you? One of the knights?" She lowered her voice for the last sentence, fairly certain that that topic was not one to be spoken about openly.   
  
"That's right. Kei, in fact." He leant up against the wall next to her. "I don't really enjoy social functions." Remembering that this particular social function was being put on by Mawata's family, he added hastily, "not that this isn't nice, if you like that sort of thing."   
  
Mawata smiled. "That's okay, Kei-san. You're right, it's not a lot of fun if you don't like it. You could leave, if you wanted to..." Mawata looked at the ground. She certainly couldn't.  
  
"No, I'm afraid I am obligated to stay. I have nothing against a dance with you though, if you would like." He looked down at her, shrugging slightly. She visibly thought it over, and then nodded and took his gloved hand.  
  
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"Hayate, my mother is staring at you. I wonder if I should introduce you to her." She and Hayate were standing my the food table, Hayate eying the snacks and Himeno her parents.  
  
"Are you asking me, or just thinking out loud, tulip-atama?" He picked up some sort of cracker with orange and red stuff sitting atop it and popped it in his mouth. Himeno kicked him in the shin at the same time, causing him to nearly spit it out. He glared at her, and she shrugged innocently.   
  
"Well, I guess I had better, she's coming over here anyway." Himeno took Hayate by the hand (she used her left hand, and since they were both wearing gloves, she figured it was safe) and led him over to where both her parents stood. Her father recognized Hayate immediately.  
  
"Ahhh, Hayate-kun! How have you been?" He slapped Hayate on the back. Hayate smiled and made some nonsensical reply. Himeno's father nodded enthusiastically.  
  
"Natsue-san, you remember Hayate-kun, don't you? He helped me out in the-"  
  
"He helped Dad find his way around the town a few times, right Hayate?" She looked pleadingly at Hayate. Her step-mother, she knew, would not approve of a pack-horse hanging about with her daughters. Hayate nodded silently.   
  
"Yes, I recognize you, Hayate-kun. But it was from ..." Whether Natsue realized where she had seen Hayate before, or whether she gave up out of unwillingness to cause awkwardness was unclear. In any case, she bowed politely to Hayate and dragged Kaoru off to mingle. Himeno stared after them, while Hayate migrated back to the snack table. He was met there by Sasame and Takako, the former of whom was pouring the latter a drink.   
  
"Glad to see you're on top of the surveillance, Sasame." Hayate's tone was as dry as the cracker he was inspecting.  
  
"I don't have to be watching to hear things, Hayate. It might interest you to know though, as you seem so interested in following that mandate, that Goh snuck out of here into the house almost half an hour ago, and I don't think he was alone." Sasame handed a cup of whatever lay in the punch bowl to Takako, and then took a sip of his drink. He stared at what he had taken for punch suspiciously, before turning back to Hayate, who looked ready to stalk out and find the errant knight. "I wouldn't worry, I think he and his company just wanted to get out of the heat for a while. The girls sounded too well trained to expect anything else."  
  
"GirlS?"   
  
"Yes, there were two of them. High society life must be very boring."  
  
"Apparently. Where's Kei?" Made suddenly aware of the fact that he had no idea where any of the other knights had been, or what they had been doing, Hayate realized that he probably should have been keeping a closer eye on them. But, with Himeno holding his arm... he was rather distracted.  
  
"I don't know. I left him hiding in a corner a while ago. I'm sure he's the only one here actually keeping an eye out. Umm, Takako, I wouldn't drink any more of that. There's a considerable amount of alcohol in it." Sasame steered Takako away from her drink, and back out onto the dance floor. Hayate picked up a cup, but Himeno caught him and dragged him away from the refreshments.  
  
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Kei, who was assumed to be "keeping an eye out", was in fact quietly dancing with Mawata in a corner, as neither of them wanted to be out in the crowd. Unfortunately, the corners were not well lit, and neither of them particularly enjoyed the darkness.   
  
"Mawata-chan, I'm going to go outside for a while, the darkness in here is oppressive. Would you like to come? We don't have to stay out long, if you are worried about being noticed..." Kei stopped dancing and looked towards the door. It was darker outside, but out there he would be free to produce some light of his own.  
  
"Okay. After all, I've spent the evening so far in this corner, and no one's missed me." She led Kei out through the side door and away from the ballroom. A few couples were scattered around, enjoying the cool night air, and the dark privacy it provided, but as they got farther away from the house they met fewer people, until they came to a bench quite a ways from the house surrounded by small trees. As there were no man-made lights out in the garden these facts were viewable only by the light Kei held in his hand, a small floating globe. Mawata sat down on the bench, Kei on the ground opposite it, leaning up against a large tree. He might have sat in the tree instead, but felt that would be rude, as it would force Mawata to constantly look up at him, should she want to converse.  
  
"Kei-san, how old are you and the other knights? The one that Himeno likes, I mean. And ..." Sasame. Her crush. Her love, who had betrayed her and broken her heart.  
  
"The four of us are all sixteen. That is, we are, our bodies, umm.... Sixteen." How could you explain that, once you had reached a peak fighting age, you hardly aged at all?  
  
"You were all born at the same time? Were you quadruplets?" Mawata looked confused.  
  
"No, no, we're the same age, but we weren't born at the same time. I'm the eldest, then Hayate, then Goh, and then Sasame [1]. But, we aren't, I mean ..." Kei trailed off, unsure of what he could tell this girl. She was Himeno's sister, but she was not a Pretear. She had a lot of leafe, but she had been manipulated for evil before. Still... he sensed no evil from her. Only kindness, and a bit of loneliness.   
  
"We aren't human. We are leafe knights, born and bred to protect the leafe of the world, and of Leafeania, our home. We aren't born, like you, from females. We are born from leafe, a sort of self-defense mechanism if you will. The leafe knights have always been here, and they always will, unless all seven of us are killed together. There are always seven, if one is killed the other six call forth another to take his place, to control his element." Kei watched Mawata closely, watched her reaction. She made none, but to frown slightly at the mention of the killing of a leafe knight.   
  
"So, you can die?"   
  
"Everything that has leafe dies, and that is all we are made up of. In the fight against Fenrir both Sasame and Hayate were killed. Himeno's leafe brought them back to life, they were lucky. If a knight dies, he is dead. The knight called to replace them will be the same only in powers, and partially in appearance. We are not reincarnated." Kei looked down at the ground, unwilling to look Mawata in the eye. She had enough troubles, without seeing the pain that lived in his, in the eyes of all the older knights.  
  
"The younger ones, Mannen, Hajime and Shin, were they, are they?" Mawata wasn't at the top of her grade out of favoritism.  
  
"Are they the replacements? Yes. We all are, for someone. The younger ones just happen to be replacements for knights we all knew. They died in the first fight against Fenrir." It was quite likely that he would have the image of their deaths in his head until his own dying day. The kids weren't looked after so carefully (if not with so much understanding) for nothing. If Himeno, a virtual stranger, could feel so saddened by the thought of their deaths, what did that mean for those who had lived instead of them? But, as always, now was not the time to think of that.  
  
"You and I are a lot alike, Kei-san." Mawata's voice was soft and somber. It wasn't, in her eyes, a particularly good thing to be likened to her. "You know what it's like to loose someone you really cared for when you were young. You must have been, because the first fight against that person was a long time ago, wasn't it? But you and your friends got over it, and I just wallowed in my own self-pity." Unspoken thought: I'm so pathetic. Mawata hugged herself, both for warmth and comfort. Kei stood and moved to sit down next to her.  
  
"You mustn't think like that, Mawata-chan. What happened to you is no one's fault, least of all your own. You were much too young to realize what you were doing to yourself. But what's passed has passed, and you shouldn't worry about it. If you do, you'll just swallow yourself up in another wave. The tide's gone out, Mawata-chan, and it isn't coming back in again." He dropped his coat over her shoulders and stared up at the night sky, pretending not to notice when she pulled the coat tighter around herself, and leant up against him, lightly at first and then more heavily, letting him take her weight.  
  
"Do you have a family, Kei-san?" Hadn't she been listening? She sounded pensive, but a little sleepy too. Maybe that was it. It was past ten thirty now, he knew that the same way he knew exactly how the trees out of his sight were lit by the starlight.   
  
"The other knights are my family."  
  
"No, I meant another family, or friends, or something... It doesn't have to be a biological one." She sounded slightly irritated, probably because she didn't perceive him as having answered her question.  
  
"That's good, as I have none. The knights are my only family, we are each others only families. None of us have any other, but I think that some ties are forming that might become a new family in a few years."  
  
"That's sad. I don't know what I would do without okaa-san, and 'nee-sama." He could tell from her tone that she meant it as well.  
  
"I think you misunderstand, they are my family, in almost every sense of the word. We might not seem to get along all the time, but what family does? The four of us act as older brothers to the younger three, and as friends to each other. I'm sure it doesn't seem very loving, but there are deep bonds between all of us. None of us makes the mistake of thinking the others don't care. Even Mannen knows it, although he's right now pretending to be too old to acknowledge it. I think that sometimes we don't do enough to show it though." Kei waited for an answer, and when he got none looked down. The younger girl was tucked up against the warmth of his side, sleeping soundly. Kei sighed and rolled his eyes, but only from habit.  
  
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Hayate stood leaning up against the wall of the ballroom, watching as Himeno danced with some snooty boy whose family owned a big company. Hayate was proud to say that at least _he_ owned some height. The party, or dance, or ball, or whatever-it-was was almost over, and Sasame had left to take a sleepy Takako home. Goh had returned a while ago half carrying the two girls he had left with, and looking very sorry he had not just picked one. It would have been considerably lighter. Kei was still nowhere to be seen. The band was winding down, and now announcing that they would be playing only one more number. Himeno shook her head to snooty-boy and walked over to Hayate.  
  
"Are you going to ask me to dance?" He cocked his head slightly and raised an eyebrow. Himeno stared at him.  
  
"Well, I was, but if you're going to be rude..." She turned, but as he had at the entrance he caught her arm and lead her out onto the floor. Where he stood for a minute, just now realizing something.  
  
"I don't know how to dance." He was horrified to hear some nervousness in his voice. Himeno, instead of laughing, smiled honestly and took his right hand in her left. She put his hand on her waist, and placed her own lightly on his shoulder. Fortunately with her head as close to his chest as it was, she could not see his face above his chin to know that he was blushing.   
  
"You don't have to do anything else if you don't want, just sort of sway with the music and walk around looking coordinated." She led him slowly around the dance floor once before he took over, the natural fluidity he gained as a knight helping his movements. The song was a long one, some sad song about city nights. As it went on Himeno, tired by the day, the night, her dress and the dancing, leant closer to Hayate, holding herself up more with her arm on his shoulder and trying to stop herself from resting her head on his chest. Surprisingly, Hayate made no jokes about her weight, and instead drew her closer, abandoning walking to the "swaying" tactic. He made no movement to object when Himeno laid her head on his chest, but began to "sway" off the floor. He had made it to the door when he felt her go limp in his arms. Sighing, he maneuvered her into the empty hall before picking her up and disappearing, reappearing in her room. He put her down on her bed and covered her with the blanket. She made no movement other than a sigh. He turned to go, but spotted something red on her dresser. A box of chocolates, with a name tag attached to the top. "Hayate". He smiled, took the chocolate, and disappeared.  
  
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Hayate appeared on the soft grass of Leafeania, outside of the large house the seven knights shared when they slept in their own world. Entering, he found the other six sitting around the table, the three children asleep in their chairs. He collapsed into the empty chair, using all his self restraint to stop himself from resting his head on the table and going to sleep. Instead he looked to Sasame.  
  
"Why are we all down here?"   
  
"When I came in, they were there already. I thought I might as well wait up for you. Goh came in, and thought so too. And Kei. So here we are, all waiting for each other."   
  
"One might have sufficed." The other knights made little sense to him at times.  
  
"It's Valentine's day." Kei had propped his head up on his hand.  
  
"Thank you, Kei, I was aware of that." Hadn't they just been at a party for the past four hours to celebrate that?  
  
"It's the holiday about love," Goh put in. One of the two, anyway...[2]  
  
Hayate stared. "Was there some sort of weird illness going around before I came home that has forced you all to state the obvious?" This was definitely odd.   
  
"No, we were just thinking, there's more than one kind of love, isn't there?" Sasame stared straight into Hayate's eyes, stopping him from rolling them.  
  
"Yeah..." So?  
  
"And family counts?" Kei.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And we're a family?" Goh.  
  
Hayate paused. He had never thought about it. Were they a family? Did they care for each other? All of them cared for the kids, that was for sure, but the others? He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, the image of Sasame lying, dying on the ground burst into his mind. Closely followed by that of Kei guarding the bodies of the three dead knights, the shield he had cast failing under fire. And then of Goh giving so much leafe to the first new knight, Mannen, that he nearly died. And of the three of them calling to him as Takako- no, Fenrir- beat him into the ground, enraged at what she perceived as his betrayal.  
  
"Yes." Hayate paused, reviewing his usually buried feelings. "And I don't think you could find a stronger one anywhere, no matter how long you searched." He looked them all in the eye, a little surprised by his own answer.  
  
"Happy Valentine's day, everyone." Kei, deciding that tonight seemed to be one to slightly bend stoic behavior, broke the silence.  
  
"Happy Valentine's day."  
  
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[1] This is true, Kei was born on Feb. 1st, Hayate on April 27th, Goh on August 22nd, and Sasame on December 30th. You can check out the other birth dates and whatnot at the Pretear official site, .   
  
[2]In Japan, St. Valentine's day is split into two holidays, Valentines day on Feb. 14th during which girls give boys chocolate, and White day on March 14th, during which boys give girls chocolate...  
  
Hope you enjoyed it, and thank you to any reviewers! 


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